[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5187-S5189]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




VIOLENT AND REPEAT JUVENILE OFFENDER ACCOUNTABILITY AND REHABILITATION 
                              ACT OF 1999

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 328

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor, along with my 
colleague from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, of the amendment he 
has just introduced, the Children's Protection From Violent Programming 
Act amendment.
  That is kind of a long title. What it means is Senator Hollings and I 
would like to restore in television broadcasting a period of time 
during the evenings when children are likely to be watching television, 
where the television programming would not be containing excess 
violence.
  The reason we feel that way is study after study, year after year--in 
fact, for decades--studies have shown the excessive violence in 
television programming hurts our children. Yet, if you evaluate 
television programming during what would normally be considered family 
viewing hours in this country, you will find the language has become 
more coarse, words are used that were previously not used, that are not 
suitable for children. You will also find substantial amounts of 
programming violence, gratuitous violence, during those shows.
  Some would say, what about censorship? I think there are times when 
it is appropriate for the Federal Communications Commission to 
establish a family viewing period in the evening where the television 
broadcasting would be more appropriate, more suitable for our children, 
when children are watching those programs. We already have an instance 
dealing with obscenity, and the Supreme Court has upheld the 
opportunity and the responsibility given the Federal Communications 
Commission to carve out a period in which certain kinds of words and 
obscenities cannot be used because it is inappropriate for them to be 
used at a time when we expect children to be watching television.
  We believe the same ought to be true with respect to television 
violence. One might say, this is much ado about nothing; television 
violence is nothing new; it is really not very important. Yet that is 
in defiance of all the conclusions of virtually all the studies. By the 
time young children graduate from high school in our country, they will 
have gone to school in classrooms for about 12,500 hours of their 
lives. But they will have watched television for about 20,000 hours. 
They have sat in a classroom 12,500 hours and sat in front of a 
television set 20,000 hours. Regrettably, too many of them are more a 
product of what they have watched than what they have read.
  What is it they are watching? Some years ago I sponsored a project 
with a college on the North Dakota-Minnesota border that created a 
television violence report card. Volunteers at that college watched 
television programs for an entire week and cataloged each and every 
program and produced a report card on what kind of violence on 
television was being portrayed to our children. If you simply condense 
what our children are watching on television--yes, even during what 
would be considered family viewing hours--it is quite remarkable.
  Imagine if someone came to your door tomorrow and said: You know, you 
have two children. They are age 6 and 9. We would like to put on a 
dramatic play for them. We have a group of actors out here in our van 
and we have some stage props. We would like to come into your home, 
into your living room, and we would like to put on a little play for 
your children.
  So they come in. In the living room they put on a play. In this 
dramatic play they shoot each other, stab each other, beat each other 
up. Blood runs freely. There is screaming, there is horror.

  You would probably say to those actors: You are just committing child 
abuse in my living room, doing that in front of my children. What on 
Earth can you be thinking of? Yet that is exactly what happens in our 
living rooms with that electronic box, with programming coming to our 
children at times when children are watching television, programming 
that is not fit for children.
  So the response they have is, turn the television set off. Easy to 
say. Of course, most homes have a good number of television sets, 
probably two or three in different parts of the homes. In many homes 
there are circumstances where the parents are attentive parents, good 
parents, who try very hard to supervise the children's viewing habits, 
but it is very, very hard to do.
  In fact, if you were watching, one day recently, a television set 
that depicted the unspeakable horror that was visited upon those 
students in Littleton High School, in the middle of the live reports 
with SWAT teams and students running out of school, with the 
understanding that children had been murdered, in the middle of all 
that one television network took a break and on came a commercial--of 
course, louder than everything else because commercials are always 
louder--advertising that you really needed to pay attention to their 
next big program. The next program was ``Mr. Murder.'' You really 
needed to watch ``Mr. Murder'' because this was going to be exciting.
  All of this, coming at our children in television programming, study 
after study points out, hurts our children. This is not helpful to 
children. It is hurtful to children.
  Newton Minow, many, many years ago--1961 in fact--said, ``Television 
is a vast wasteland of blood, thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism and 
murder.'' He said, ``In 1961 I worried that my children would not 
benefit much from television. But in 1991 I worry that my children will 
actually be harmed by it.''
  Television executives produce some wonderful programming as well. You 
can turn to certain programs on television and be struck by the beauty 
and the wonder and the information. I have sat with my children 
watching the History Channel, for example, or certain programs on the 
Discovery Channel. I should not begin naming them. There are some 
wonderful, beautiful things from time to time on television. But there 
are some ugly, grotesque things on television as well, some of which 
come through our television sets during times children are expected to 
be watching.

  What the Senator from South Carolina proposes is very simple: to go 
back to a time when we had in this country a period described by the 
FCC as a ``family viewing period'' that would be relatively free of 
gratuitous violence being displayed in those programs.
  Is that so extreme, so radical? Do we really believe that we have to 
hurt our children in order to entertain our adults? I do not think so. 
It does not make any sense to me. There is plenty of opportunity in a 
lot of areas to entertain adults in this country, but it seems to me 
perfectly reasonable that at certain times when you expect families to 
be watching with children in the household that we could try to reduce 
the amount of violence on television.
  I understand that some will portray this as a terrible idea. They 
will say we now have some ratings systems, and the ratings will give 
parents the capability of better supervising their children's viewing 
habits. That is true. I commend the broadcasting industry for having 
ratings. Not all do. One of the major networks has declined. The 
ratings themselves have not been used very much.

[[Page S5188]]

  We have a V-chip that is coming in all new television sets. I offered 
the first V-chip bill in the Senate some years ago. That is now law, 
and that will help parents sort out the programming with certain 
violent scenes.
  The fact is, we need to do more. The Senator from South Carolina and 
I have offered an amendment that we think will be helpful. We do not 
believe it has constitutional problems. This is not about free speech. 
You can say pretty much what you want to say and you can depict 
violence, but we are saying during a certain period of time, you cannot 
do it in a way that injures children.
  I thought it might be useful to go over a couple of the pieces of 
evidence that most all of us have become acquainted with in all of the 
studies and hearings that we have had. I guess I have been involved in 
this issue for 7, 8 years. We have had hearings in the Commerce 
Committee and elsewhere.
  I have a couple of young children who are now age 12 and age 10. We 
try very hard to make certain that we monitor their viewing habits. Our 
12-year-old said to us: Well, friends of ours are able to go to movies 
that are PG-13 movies.
  We say: That might be something their parents let them do, but we 
don't. We don't want you to see material that is inappropriate.
  Movies have ratings, and so you make affirmative decisions whether 
you are going to go out or allow your child to go out with someone else 
and see a movie. But television is different. Television is in our 
family rooms, in our homes. When we turn that dial on the television, 
the programming that is shown on that television set is programming 
that is offered for entertainment and for profit.
  The first amendment allows people to produce all kinds of 
programming. As I mentioned before, there are some wonderful, wonderful 
things on television. There is also some trash on television. It seems 
to me it would be helpful for parents to have the assistance of the 
Federal Communications Commission and broadcasters in complying with an 
amendment of this sort adopted by the Congress that will give parents 
the feeling that during certain periods, they will not have to worry 
about what kind of violent scenes are going to be displayed to their 
children on that television set.

  I have a fair amount of things I want to say about the amendment in 
addition to this, but we have a conference committee meeting. The 
appropriations conference committee is ongoing in the basement of this 
building, and I am a conferee, so I must return. I know Senator 
Hollings and I will be back on the floor tomorrow morning and will be 
speaking on behalf of this amendment.
  My hope is between now and then we will be able to encourage other 
Members of the Senate to be supportive of this amendment. I know others 
have come out. I have been in the conference committee, and I have not 
been here for much debate on the juvenile justice bill.
  Also tomorrow, I want to take a moment to describe a visit I just 
made to the Oakhill Detention Center in Laurel, MD. I went out there 
because I wanted to sit down and talk with juvenile offenders. I wanted 
to try to understand from judges who were there, from prosecutors and 
from public defenders, and from the juvenile offenders themselves: What 
is going on?
  I sat with a young boy who had been in a gang and shot three times 
and sold drugs at age 12.
  I sat with a girl who was 15 years old. She had a baby 2 years 
previous to that. She was abused by her mother. She sold drugs at age 
13.
  I sat with another young boy who was selling drugs at age 12 who had 
been involved with guns and very serious offenses.
  These are kids who shot people, kids who committed armed robbery, 
kids who were in a lot of trouble.
  One of the boys said something that was quite remarkable--most all of 
them came from circumstances of really difficult conditions, no 
parental supervision. In fact, the young girl said her mother was a 
drug addict and told her, from the moment she was able to understand 
what her mother was saying, that she would never amount to anything. 
She told this girl: You will never amount to anything and I never 
wanted you in the first place. That was from a drug-addict mother. This 
young girl is now locked up and has been convicted of selling drugs and 
other criminal acts. She has a baby and is only 15 years old.
  We talked about supervision, how do you get your life straight? Who 
cares about you? Somebody said: But you need to have a parent check up 
on you once in a while, don't you?
  This young boy said: No, you don't need a parent to check up on you 
once in a while. That's the problem.
  If you have maybe a grandparent or uncle and aunt and someone checks 
in once in a while, once in a while is not enough for children. 
Children need help, need parental supervision, not once in a while.
  I spent a half day out at the Oakhill Detention Center just talking 
with kids to try to understand. I should also say--I will talk a bit 
about it tomorrow--there is another part of that Oakhill Detention 
Center that left me feeling a little buoyant and hopeful.
  There were some young men--in this case it was older young boys, some 
young boys who had committed horrible crimes, who had been drug addicts 
from age 12 on to about 17, 18, young boys in a program to shed 
themselves of their drug addiction and to turn their lives around. One 
young boy was going to be released the Friday I was there. This is a 
couple weeks ago, and he had a job. He had gone out for an interview 
and had gotten himself a job.

  This young guy had gone through the drug program. He has become 
straight. It is fascinating to listen to him describe his background, 
where he wants to go, and what he now knows he needs to do to get his 
life back in order.
  The reason I want to talk about it is part of this issue of juvenile 
justice is, yes, detention and protection and law enforcement, and 
another part of it is to say there is something else here that we need 
to do to help. I know that is a debate that has occurred on this floor 
now for many, many hours. But mentoring programs, afterschool 
programs--there are a lot of programs that can make a difference in 
young people's lives, especially programs dealing with drugs. Drugs 
were at the root of a lot of the troubled lives of the young children 
whom I saw at this detention center.
  I hope we can come back tomorrow and talk a little bit about the 
Juvenile Justice Act.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be pleased to yield.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, it is wonderful that the Senator has 
done that. I feel as if we are two trains passing in the night on this 
bill. I hope the Senator will understand something that is extremely, 
extremely important: that the juvenile accountability block grant--
which has been referred to as nothing but a ``lock them up'' program 
and that what we need is prevention money--is to encourage just the 
kind of situation the Senator is talking about because had those 
children just been released again, and not been sent to a well-run, 
well-organized drug treatment school, detention facility, in which they 
were removed from their community, they probably would be on the 
streets now, maybe committing a more serious crime or a victim 
themselves of a serious crime.
  So I think there is a false contrast between what is prevention and 
what is not. I would say that a child who is already running into 
trouble with the law--as these children are--has to be confronted. 
There has to be an effective intervention in a life going wrong. And 
these kinds of facilities are going on around the country.
  I visited one in Illinois. Judge Grossman gave us a tour. The county 
and the State, and some Federal moneys, have helped create a panoply of 
options when a young person comes before him for sentencing. He has a 
number of options. Instead of the juvenile going to where there are a 
few bed spaces in the State pen or released with nothing, the judge has 
a series of things right there in the community he can do. The 
accountability block grant, with graduated sanctions, provides that 
opportunity.
  So I would hope the Senator, as he studies this, would realize that 
the prevention money that we put in would not go to support that, but 
the block grant accountability money would support the judiciary as it 
seeks to intervene. Sometimes you have to be

[[Page S5189]]

tough--some of these kids have really been on a bad road a long time--
to intervene effectively.
  Thank you for taking the time to personally visit and study one of 
those centers.

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